Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Centripetal Networks, Inc., IPR2018-01437 (Jan. 23, 2020)
In a recent inter partes review decision invalidating a patent disclosing systems and methods for filtering network data transfers, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board held that a user manual was a publicly available printed publication that qualified as prior art.
Ciena Corp. v. Oyster Optics, LLC, Appeal No. 2019-2117 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 28, 2020)
The Federal Circuit has held that a party that petitioned for inter partes review before the Patent Trial Appeal Board and subsequently obtained an unfavorable ruling cannot now invoke Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc. to vacate and remand the Board’s decision for a new hearing before a differently constituted panel.
23andMe, Inc. v. Ancestry.com DNA, LLC et al., Appeal No. 2019-1222 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 9, 2020)
The Federal Circuit has denied a petition for rehearing en banc brought by 23andMe, leaving in place the court’s earlier ruling on October 4, 2019, that the company’s patent, which describes a method for identifying the degree of relationship between two individuals based on their DNA samples, was invalid for claiming a rule of nature.
23andMe’s patent, U.S. Patent No. 8,463,554 (“Finding relatives in a database”), covers a method of comparing two individuals’ recombinable DNA sequence information—rather than the whole genome—in order to determine a relative relationship. According to 23andMe, the ‘554 patent explains that only relatives will share long stretches of genome regions where their recombinable DNA is completely or nearly identical. 23andMe sued Ancestry in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that it was infringing the ‘554 patent with its AncestryDNA kits, which feature services to identify relatives who share parts of their DNA.